Latest news – Page 724
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News
Conveyancing Quality Scheme makes progress
The Law Society’s chief executive gave an update on the progress of the Quality Conveyancing Scheme at the property section’s annual conference last week. Since registration for the scheme launched in January, Desmond Hudson said 913 firms have applied for the quality mark. ...
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EU announces measures for recovery of cross-border debts
The European Union has announced a new initiative to recover the estimated £48bn of debt that is written off every year because of the difficulty of bringing lawsuits overseas. Some 60% of cross-border debts cannot be recovered because, as the law stands, enforcement measures such as ...
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NHS ‘failing to learn lessons’ of litigation claims
The medical profession is failing to learn lessons from costly litigation claims, according to a leading clinical negligence lawyer. Writing in the latest issue of Clinical Risk, Irwin Mitchell partner Ian Christian says information from legal actions is not filtering back through the NHS. ...
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Conveyancing firms must change to compete, solicitors warned
Residential conveyancing firms must change their business models to withstand the threat posed by new entrants to the legal market place, delegates at the Law Society’s annual property section conference heard last week. The Society’s chief executive Des Hudson said the introduction of alternative business structures, ...
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Rightmove founder enters conveyancing market
The founder of Rightmove has today launched online residential conveyancing service In-deed, intended to shake-up the conveyancing market. Harry Hill, the founder of Rightmove and former chief executive of estate agency Countrywide, said the service would make the home sale process simpler, more transparent and ...
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QualitySolicitors: watch our exclusive interview with Craig Holt
Brands will dominate the legal market when alternative business structures are introduced this October – and firms that have not joined a network such as QualitySolicitors or do not do work for larger brands will find the market ‘very small indeed’. So argues a bullish Craig ...
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Legal aid award finalists announced
The Legal Aid Practitioners’ Group has announced the finalists for its Lawyer of the Year 2011. They include Razi Shah, solicitor at Windsor firm Appleby Shaw, who successfully appealed against the custodial sentence given to Munir Hussain. Hussain had been convicted ...
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Neuberger sets out injunctions review
The UK’s leading judges have warned MPs not to abuse their parliamentary privilege to break the privacy achieved by injunctions. Lord Neuberger, the Master of the Rolls, appeared before the media this morning to set out a review of injunctions. The report ...
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Legal executives should be on ‘equal footing’ to solicitors, claims ILEX
Legal executives should be able to provide the full breadth of services ‘on an equal footing’ to solicitors, the president of the Institute of Legal Executives said yesterday. David McGrady said securing further rights for ILEX members remains the goal of the professional body. ...
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Bar Standards Board reviews barristers’ CPD requirements
The Bar Standards Board has announced a review of the continuing professional development (CPD) requirements for barristers. The biggest proposed change would see an increase in the number of CPD hours that members of the bar are required to do each year, doubling it from 12 to 24. A more ...
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Christianity needs more than just ceremonial support
In his letter of 6 May pertaining to the Comment piece by Andrea Minichiello Williams, ‘Equality law is victimising Christians’, Charlie Klendjian does not appear to have as full a grasp of the facts as he claims. First, the Queen, despite her Coronation Oath, has ...
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Pointing the finger at ideologies
In ‘Equality law is victimising Christians’ (28 April), Andrea Minichiello Williams makes the statement, ‘law cannot be divorced from Christianity’, while criticising totalitarian ideologies like fascism and communism.
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The law comes first
I read the ‘Comment’ article by Andrea Minichiello Williams. The bottom line has to be that no one should expect to be able to put their own beliefs before the law without consequences. People are, perhaps, arrested, sacked and so ...
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That’s religious progress
In her article about ‘Christian persecution’, Andrea Minichiello Williams writes that, for hundreds of years, ‘most of the great advances in public life, in health care, education and social provision, came as a result of Christian conviction that cares for the good of all’. If ...
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Pro bono approval
On 12 May Jonathan Rayner reported on the ‘outcry’ that has arisen because in-house lawyers might be prevented from working pro bono. In addressing this issue, two principles should be kept in balance:
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Deaf to Denning
I was amused to read the Obiter piece of 12 May entitled ‘Running in the family', about the Law Society president’s daughter being admitted to the roll. I too was witnessed being admitted as a solicitor, more than 30 years ago, while my father, Sir John ...
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CPS under fire over advocate panels
The Crown Prosecution Service faced pressure from both its own inspectorate and the Bar Council this week over its procurement of external advocates. The Gazette has learned that the Bar Council is seeking advice on a judicial review of the CPS’s new advocate panels. ...
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Law firms in cash call to partners
At least five of the top-20 law firms are planning to make a capital call on partners, the Gazette has learned. Mid-tier firms are also seeking to shore up their balance sheets, with at least 15 of the firms in the 20-50 size bracket seeking to ...
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Harrow Law Centre's community approach is the 'model to follow'
The multi-funded community approach adopted by the newly launched Harrow Law Centre is the ‘model to follow’ for the voluntary sector, according to the centre’s chair Pamela Fitzpatrick. Lord Justice Mummery opened the centre, which provides advice on social welfare law, public law, community care, housing, ...
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European Arrest Warrants are 'misused', says FTI
Mismanagement of the European Arrest Warrant (EAW) has led to a ‘no questions asked’ extradition regime with severe human and financial costs to those charged with minor offences, according to a report by Fair Trials International (FTI).